17 mai 2023 | International, Naval
The Pentagon has asked Congress to authorize three new AUKUS provisions, including the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.
10 janvier 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Canada’s fleet of MQ-9B SkyGuardian® RPAS equipped with L3Harris’ WESCAM MX-20D will provide a significant advancement in ISR capabilities across Canada’s vast and harsh territorial landscape and environments, including the...
11 juin 2018 | International, Terrestre
After decades of using laser-type devices for shooting simulations and force-on-force tactical warfighting, the Marine Corps is asking for a new way to do fake shooting. A recent request for information is asking the commercial industry to bring ideas to the Corps that would help it make simulated shooting more realistic for up to a battalion-size force and improve current systems. Some versions of those systems have been in operation since Nintendo's Duck Hunt video game was considered high-tech shooting and laser tag advertisements dominated Saturday morning cartoons. This won't hit every Marine Corps installation but many will have it. Based on the RFI, the systems would be employed “to provide turnkey instrumented exercises with After Action Review (AAR) at 29 Palms, Camp Lejeune, Camp Pendleton, MCB Hawaii, MCB Okinawa or MCB Quantico within 3 weeks of notice, as well as support additional exercises upon request at Camp Fuji, Japan, Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Center, MCB Yuma, and specified reserve locations.” And the Marines are not doing this alone. They will be leveraging the Army's Live Training Engagement Component software. That's a tactical training framework so that simulations can be on the same standards and work jointly with other services and potentially foreign partners. One of the key cross functional teams that the Army formed last year included simulated training environment work. The goal is to incorporate better simulations for training at all levels, beginning in the design and procurement of future weapons and other equipment systems. The Corps wants a system that would be able to simulate all weapons and vehicles typically seen in a battalion, which would include at least: M4/M16; M9 or sidearm, the M27 Infantry Automatic Weapon; hand grenades; rocket propelled grenades; Light Anti-Tank Weapon; 60mm mortars; 81mm mortars; Claymore antipersonnel mine; Mk-19 grenade launcher; Russian machine gun; AK-47 variants; M41 TOW; Javelin missile and the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle. It would distinguish between a hit, wound or miss and record information for after-action reviews. Marine Corps Times first reported news of this initiative last year following an interview with then-program manager for Training Systems at Marine Corps Systems Command, Col. Walt Yates. At the time, Yates described some of the shortfalls of using lasers when gauging accuracy and real-world effects. “A laser is at the speed of light, and the bullet is not,” he said. Yates previously said that though the current shooting systems are a generational change from old MILES, or multiple integrated laser engagement system, lasers have fundamental flaws for realistic battle scenarios. For example, laser-based systems shoot line-of-sight, making arcing weapons such as mortars and grenade launchers more difficult to simulate. Lasers can also be deflected by light concealment such as tree leaves and thin walls. And the number of troops and shooting ranges will change with new systems. The first generation ITESS accommodated 120 Marines and opposition forces, the second generation expanded to 1,500 with a communication radius of 5 to 8 km. The third seeks to track up to 2,500 Marines, making it capable of battalion on battalion exercises envisioned by the commandant, Yates said in the November interview. A new simulator must act more like a real bullet, requiring Marines to lead their moving targets, fire rifles on semi, burst and fully automatic modes and ensure the bullet travels in the realistic path, which is not perfectly line of sight, he said. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/06/04/marines-want-a-better-way-do-force-on-force-tactical-shooting-training/
1 mai 2019 | International, C4ISR
DARPA's SIGMA program, which began in 2014, has demonstrated a city-scale capability for detecting radiological and nuclear threats that is now being operationally deployed. DARPA is building off this work with the SIGMA+ initiative that is focused on providing city- to region-scale detection capabilities across the full chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive threat space. DARPA initiated a SIGMA+ pilot study last year known as ChemSIGMA to provide initial data and insights into how new chemical sensors using the existing SIGMA network would function. The chemical sensor package incorporates a chemical sensor, wind sensor and communications board into a weatherproof housing. Sensors report wind readings and real-time chemical information to a central cloud-hosted suite of fusion algorithms. “The algorithms were developed using a custom simulation engine that fuses multiple detector inputs,” said Anne Fischer, program manager in DARPA's Defense Sciences Office. “We built the algorithms based on simulant releases in a large metropolitan area – so we took existing data to build the algorithms for this network framework. With this network, we're able to use just the chemical sensor outputs and wind measurements to look at chemical threat dynamics in real time, how those chemical threats evolve over time, and threat concentration as it might move throughout an area.” In the pilot study, DARPA researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Physical Sciences Inc., and Two Six Labs, built a small network of chemical sensor packages. In partnership with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the Marion County Health Department, DARPA's performer teams deployed the network on-site at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in late April 2018. The chemical sensor network and the data collected during events such as the 2018 Indianapolis 500 were critical to the DARPA effort, allowing the team to assess the performance of the sensors and network algorithms. These tests were conducted in an urban environment to ensure that the system could handle complex and stochastic signals from species that are ever present in a city's chemical background. Significantly, the network-level algorithm successfully improved system performance by correctly suppressing false detection events at the individual detector level. The group of DARPA researchers was also able to collect a large relevant data set and valuable user feedback that will guide ongoing system development efforts. Further testing with safe simulant/concert smoke at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, August 2018 During additional tests in August 2018, a non-hazardous chemical simulant was released in the empty Indianapolis Motor Speedway at a realistic threat rate. Concert fog was also released to serve as a visible tracer. The propagation of the visible tracer was observed in aerial photography, and ChemSIGMA sensors and algorithms determined the release location with unprecedented accuracy. The web-based ChemSIGMA interface allows the user to view alerts in real time across a variety of devices. Multiple trials were conducted over the course of several days assessing performance over a variety of meteorological conditions. Releases occurred during daytime and nighttime with a full range of wind directions and speeds. The ChemSIGMA prototype system detected all of the simulant releases and generated zero false alarms over the course of testing. Department of Defense simulant testing at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, October 2018 “We're looking at how we might make this network more robust and more mature,” Fischer said. “For example, we implemented a network at Dugway Proving Ground as part of a DoD test for simulant releases, and have shown that the network can respond to a number of chemical simulant threats different than those used in Indianapolis, as well as built-in capabilities for mobile releases. Over the past few months, the team has used these data sets to further refine the algorithms, and plans to integrate and test them with the ChemSIGMA system in test events scheduled later this year.” The successful pilot and simulant test of the ChemSIGMA system at the Indy500 and Dugway Proving Ground provided valuable, relevant, and realistic data sets for validation and verification of the source localization and plume propagation algorithms. DARPA is currently extending the capabilities for networked chemical detection by advancing additional sensor modalities, including short-range point sensors based on techniques, such as mass spectrometry, and long-range spectroscopic systems. As these systems are further developed and matured, they will be integrated into the SIGMA+ continuous, real-time, and scalable network architecture to increase the system's capabilities for city-scale monitoring of chemical and explosive threats and threat precursors. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-04-30